Music :: Live Review 09 May 2008
Beth Malone: Tonight, there are moments of panic. Body to body, sweat on sweat. Even the skinniest of asses can’t squeeze their way through the sold-out Academy crowd. Opening with Night of the Lotus Eaters, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fittingly describe the ...
Music :: Feature 09 May 2008
Milo McLaughlin: Errors – Salut! France Errors’ seemingly effortless, organic blend of live instruments and laptops makes for a stupendously good live show. An updated version of Salut! France is due to feature on their long-awaited debut album (almost fin...
Paul Neeson: Those who have gathered early enough this evening to catch Copy Haho [**] appear to consider them nothing more than an unnecessary divergence from the main event, however pushing past the crowd’s indifference with some fired-up, Pavement-lauding ...
Music :: Feature 07 May 2008
Stuart McHugh: The Vaselines, fronted by Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, had a shortlived career in the late 1980s, retaining a cult status in their native Scotland until Nirvana covered 3 of their tracks, firstly on the Incesticide compailation and then on the MTV U...
Music :: Live Review 07 May 2008
Nick Mitchell: RememberRemember's (***) Graeme Ronald chose his new musical moniker wisely, because by the end of every 'song' (in the loosest possible sense) the minimalist sequences and percussive noises are not live but recorded, looped, the stuff of memory. He ma...
Finbarr Bermingham: Given the challenge of warming up for the irrepressible Andrew Bird are Baltimore post-rockers Human Bell (***). Appearances are deceiving as these Hell's Angels-alikes deliver an impressive combo of surprisingly tender melodies and straight up noise, ...
Live Review 03 May 2008
Ally Brown: Such is the dinner-party aesthetic that Portishead unwittingly acquired after Dummy, it’s a minor surprise the Corn Exchange floor isn’t arranged with furnished tables for Beth Gibbons to lounge over. Instead the packed crowd is loud and ex...
01 May 2008
Beth Malone: Mara Carlyle (***) is a pixie; her soft, clean vocals and coquettish banter are both demure and relaxing. She should perform at intimate oak-paneled tea houses, not as the ‘special guest’ for Jamie Lidell. The crowd plays along, humming whe...
Records :: Round Up 26 Apr 2008
Nick Mitchell: Most agree that the indie-fication of pop has been a change for the better. Except, that is, when bands like The Pigeon Detectives bring their knuckle-dragging post-Libertine shtick to the table with new single This Is An Emergency (2stars, 5 May). A r...
Records :: Album Review 25 Apr 2008
Ali Maloney: Not wanting to be labeled as a racial profiler, I have previously pondered many times in these pages about why Japan does actually, factually have the best bands - Boredoms, Ghost, Fushitsusha etc. When gajin bands try to mimic their brilliance, they g...
Beth Malone: Ayr's Drive By Argument promise to "make you shit your pants". If you don’t, they offer a complimentary laxative. It takes a special band to propose that absurd gags equal talent; DBA should probably let their music attract the attention and leav...
Ali Maloney: Taking an aesthetic cue from amp shredding moments of chaos and the creeping screeching strings of Italian giallo films, Grey Daturas are a behemothic beast. This Australian instrumental's improv covers a wide whirlpool of psychedelic noise and like al...
Ali Maloney: These Spiegeltent favourites and brass titans finally unveil their second full length album and anyone to have experienced their raucous live shows will delight at the magnificent way in which this ten-strong maverick crew has been captured on CD. Even...
Nick Mitchell: The Charlatans, along with the Manics and Oases of this world, are a band content to plough the same musical furrow ad infinitum. And while perseverance should be celebrated when it reaps consistently good produce - such as 2001's Wonderland - it's ver...
Ali Maloney: Remember the end of Blazing Saddles? When the big cowboy punch-up finale spills over into the studio next door where a load of tap-dancing top hatters join in on the fight? Well this sounds like the soundtrack; except also with rockabilly badasses, coc...
Nick Mitchell: It may seem exaggerated to call this a comeback, given that The Futureheads only crashed on to the scene with their self-titled debut some four years ago, but when the Sunderland punk-popsters were dumped by their label after a second album that certai...
Nick Mitchell: Side-projects: for the artist who just can't fit his talent/ego within one band. So we have Jack White letting his inner Led Zep fanboy roam free in The Raconteurs, Nick Cave descending yet further into his own devilish psyche for Grinderman, Mark E Sm...
Ally Brown: Falkirk resident Adam Stafford seems to be reaching the end of his tether, as he complains, "New fans can't be swayed, promoters will not speak to me unless my profile's raised" on Rescue Weekend's title track. But that song will surely date quicker th...
Neal Parsons: This album will surprise you. Whether it’s the monstrous Muse-like riff which breaks up the near incessant disco rhythm drums on Gravity & Heat, or how much their quieter tracks sound like Placebo is irrelevant; Life Processes is not what it ...
Music 25 Apr 2008
Matt Gollock: "Every record I promise not to, and this is the first record where I’ve been strong enough not to peek." Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu is responding to the question of whether he reads his own press, subscribing to the idea that, for the artist, the a...
